Goldberg, Rose Lee. “Laurie Anderson’s Rhythmic Eye”. Aperture. 160 (2000): 66-71.

But these are not films, although the projections are movie-screen-sized, and sometimes contain film footage. Performances such as Songs and Stories from Moby Dick (1999) or Empty Places (1989-90), with such unforgettable musical material as "Strange Angel" and "Hiawatha," include a collection of continuously changing pictures that are orchestrated, nowadays, by banks of computers and computerized projectors crammed with slides, animation drawings, and film and video footage.

“the tyranny of the rectangle”

The endless stream of visuals, which are also a mix of words and ideograms, hand-drawn stick figures and floating letters, do not illustrate the music so much as lead it. They provide the basic beat of a work--"your eyes are the rhythm section," she says--and force viewers to watch closely: one of her goals is for image and music to be read exactly on a par.

She is intensely aware of her body both as a screen--how it stops and bends light--and as a projector--how shadows bounce off of her.

"Photography," she says, "is just another way of using light."